Loos in offices - private or suite - your preference?

[kabbes]

Incidentally, I know that the idea that all women are a nurturing sisterhood who can't share their personal problems with any men is an attractive concept, but the reality is wildly different. In the world that I recognise, trust and an ability to talk about personal issues cuts cross-gender, with women being deeply uncomfortable sharing the things you mention with a lot of other women in the office, whilst being perfectly comfortable to talk about it with a lot of the men in the office.

 

[rover07]

What surfaces are best for drug-taking?

Maybe a separate stainless steel surface at chest height in the cubicles.

 

[Badger Kitten]

I understand what you mean. But you know what else goes on where people congregate?

I'm thinking of doing this on that project. What do you think?
Do you think that I should ask him to do this project?
We're having a meeting on Thursday. Why don't you come along?

The fact is that a major reason why women are struggling in the institutionally sexist corporations is that they rely on meetings as being the points that decisions are made rather than realising that the decision has generally been made long before the meeting ever started. "Corridor meetings" are where internal networking happens and internal networking is 70% of career advancement.

I already mentioned earlier that just this morning I ended up speaking with the CEO in the loo about some project that is going on. By definition, all women were excluded from that impromptu meeting. It may seem trivial to you, but it adds up to a major pattern.

People will do all that stuff elsewhere - in the pub, over coffee, etc etc.

 

[rover07]

With 9 floors... a mix of different types of loos would be possible.

Maybe unisex on a couple...would be interesting to see how well used they are....

 

[bluestreak]

having worked somewhere with private loos - the downsides are these:

when they are occupied, you have to loiter outside in the corridor, and everyone knows you're waiting for the loo. Whereas noramlly you could wait in the sinks and mirror bit.

when someone has made the loo smelly, the smell drifts straight out into the corridor when they open the door. When the door is then closed, the remaining smell has much less chance to dissapate than it does over and under traditional stall partitions.

toilett rolls seem to be allowed to run out more often. if the loo is occupied, there's nowhere for the cleaner to leave the spare loo rolls.


you're right about the positives, but the negatives make me prefer a cubicle and lobby format, having experienced both.

Agreed.

 

[bluestreak]

I used to have a little application on my computer that told you how exactly much you were getting paid to shit.

You put in your salary and it kept track each day to the penny how much you'd got paid so far. If you went passed your allotted hours, it alerted you that you were now working for nothing. And it had a TOILET BREAK button that you could press so that when you came back, you could see exactly how much you'd been paid whilst on the shitter.

Most useful computer application ever.

I want I want!

 

[kabbes]

People will do all that stuff elsewhere - in the pub, over coffee, etc etc.

Right -- all unisex locations. Of course it will still go on, but we have to make sure that one sex isn't written out of the conversation before it even starts.

The conversations you describe can mostly still go on elsewhere too, of course.

 

[kabbes]

I want I want!

Your wish is my command.

 

[Badger Kitten]

Incidentally, I know that the idea that all women are a nurturing sisterhood who can't share their personal problems with any men is an attractive concept, but the reality is wildly different. In the world that I recognise, trust and an ability to talk about personal issues cuts cross-gender, with women being deeply uncomfortable sharing the things you mention with a lot of other women in the office, whilst being perfectly comfortable to talk about it with a lot of the men in the office.

Equally, a lot of women would not want men anywhere near the bog area, and value a woman-only place.

You can't ask blokes to lend you Tampax, or lipstick, or check if you have VPL, or to help you do up your dress,
(without sounding like you are being inappropriate) and I think you are just being naive/unrealistic if you think banning women's lobby handwashing areas is a good idea. You talk about women being 'deeply uncomfortable' sharing with all the women in the office, but that is entirely missing the point, you don't go in the loo and sound off to all the women in the office. I am not talking about a 'nurturing sisterhood', ffs, i am talking about the reality of office bogs and office life.

 

[kabbes]

Equally, a lot of women would not want men anywhere near the bog area, and value a woman-only place.

You can't ask blokes to lend you Tampax, or lipstick, or check if you have VPL, or to help you do up your dress,
(without sounding like you are being inappropriate) and I think you are just being naive/unrealistic if you think banning women's lobby handwashing areas is a good idea. You talk about women being 'deeply uncomfortable' sharing with all the women in the office, but that is entirely missing the point, you don't go in the loo and sound off to all the women in the office. I am not talking about a 'nurturing sisterhood', ffs, i am talking about the reality of office bogs and office life.

The kabbess, when she was still working in an office rather than at home, had three good friends at work that she was willing to talk to in the manner you mention. They were all men. The women she didn't trust further than she could throw them, which isn't very far because she has weedy arm muscles. And I have had equal numbers of close males and female friends at work, and the women didn't think twice about asking me about their lipstick or VPL. Why would they? Admittedly I was unlikely to have a tampax about my person but, as it happens, I do have a supply of sanitary pads in my glove compartment. Not for me, I hasten to add.

I think you are assuming that your reality applies to the general population as a whole. Women aren't inherently better to talk to about these things just because they are women. Some women are good confidantes and some men are good confidantes, just like some women are bitchy arseholes just like some men are bitchy arseholes.

 

[Badger Kitten]

I don't know if you are being intentionally patronising? I'm nearly 40 and have worked in numerous offices for almost 20 years.

 

[Badger Kitten]

I think you are assuming that your reality applies to the general population as a whole. Women aren't inherently better to talk to about these things just because they are women. Some women are good confidantes and some men are good confidantes, just like some women are bitchy arseholes just like some men are bitchy arseholes.

Like, wow, thank you so much for explaining that. In all my time alive I had never, ever realised such a thing.

 

[Badger Kitten]

I really find it helpful to have a man explain the reality of women's loos to me.

 

[Badger Kitten]

*goes for a fag and leaves the thread*

 

[kabbes]

I really find it helpful to have a man explain the reality of women's loos to me.

Ah, there it is. You do genuinely think that your perception of reality is the same thing as the entire gamut of human experience.

 

[Badger Kitten]

I think you are assuming that your reality applies to the general population as a whole

I think you are assuming that your reality applies to the general population as a whole, Kabbes.

 

[kabbes]

I think you are assuming that your reality applies to the general population as a whole, Kabbes.

How so?

 

[Badger Kitten]

Read your own posts.

 

[Looby]

Can you do a communal loo but put proper walls with floor to ceiling doors between the cubicals?

There is nothing worse than sitting down for a poo only to have someone stride into the bogs, sit down in the cubicle next to you and start farting and splatting one out. Even worse when they exit the toilet as you're washing your hands so you can put name to noises.

This. I was all set to vote for private loos but Badger Kitten and Spanglechick made very good points.

Communal with propers walls is perfect.

 

[kabbes]

OK, I've read my own posts. They make the following points:

1) Areas that are single-sex foster institutional sexism
2) This actually hits women harder than it hits men
3) Although it is nice to have a down-area outside the environment of the office, there is no reason for this down-area not to be unisex, because
4) People are as likely to trust people of the other gender as their own, and there are those you wouldn't want to trust on either side of the divide.

How is any of that imposing my reality on the general?

 

[Badger Kitten]

Incidentally, I know that the idea that all women are a nurturing sisterhood

nobody ever said they were

who can't share their personal problems with any men

nobody ever said this either

is an attractive concept

,

strawman

but the reality is wildly different.

based on what? your reality? your extensive experience of women's bogs?

In the world that I recognise,

ah, the world that you recognise...

trust and an ability to talk about personal issues cuts cross-gender

,

mmm, and this is about single gender office handwashing facilities with cubicles, not levels of trust and sexism in the workplace,

with women being deeply uncomfortable sharing the things you mention with a lot of other women in the office

,

speaking on behalf of all women? Or just personal experience, and opinion, kabbes?

whilst being perfectly comfortable to talk about it with a lot of the men in the office.

...men like marvellous you? In your experience. All very nice. But tell me how this isn't ''assuming that your reality applies to the general population as a whole''?

 

[kabbes]

I was disproving the paradigm with a counterexample, not claiming that the counterexample was a new paradigm.

 

[Fuchs66]

Just put a sink in every office and locks on the doors

 

[Ms Ordinary]

Can you lend me a Tampax?
My tights have laddered - can you see?
He's moving out tonight. I don't want to cry at my desk.
Ooh, that's a lovely lipstick colour.
Budge over a bit, I need to share the mirror to put my eyeliner on.
Does this make my tummy look like it is sticking out?
I just needed to get away from him for two minutes, did you hear him in the team meeting?
Have you got any paracetamol, my period pain is killing me.


This is what goes on in the ladies loo, and it is necessary to have a place for it. People at work are not robots.

I don't have this at work, as I am usually the only woman there, and I really don't miss it!

It's a small workplace with just 2 unisex loos though - if I worked in a huge office complex with loads of back-biting women I'd deffo need a place to go & hide sometimes...

(disclaimer: most workplaces with a high proportion of women are probably not hell on earth, but I've not worked in one for a while so I wouldn't know.)

They have individual loos off the main gallery space in the Guggenheim museum, I thought that, and the plentiful water fountains were almost the best thing about the place .

eta: the corridor outside the loo at work often smells foul, people do stinky shits and then leave the door open (to air it? who knows?) despite the fact that the loo has window which perfectly well, plus an extract fan, while the corridor is unventilated.

 

[haushoch]

I'm a woman and personally I prefer to use a private loo at the office and have a chat with my colleagues over lunch or in the kitchen or in the pub after work or simply across the desk. I do that thing where me and my friend will go to the loo together when in the pub, but at work, nah, don't like it...though admittedly I only ever worked in small practices and they all had individual WCs...and even though architecture is traditionally a very male dominated environment, in the places I worked at, the mix was more 50/50.

 

[salem]

A place to cry? A place to hide? By god I think I now understand why the old guys at the top don't want women in the workplace.

 

[salem]

Proper floor to ceiling doors + dividers are a must, anything less is demeaning. A lobby area is nice too if the entrance to the cubicles isn't in someway secluded (i.e you don't want to open the cubicle to an office full of people)

 

[ViolentPanda]

I'm an architect and I've been giving the exciting task of designing WC suites on 9 floors in an office building.

I've developed two approaches, one is the standard one, where you basically enter a shared lobby with the washbasins, mirrors & hand dryers, etc and then you have WC cubicles off that lobby, enclosed by the typical fairly light-weight partitions. One suite for the guys, one suite for the women, one separate unisex cubicle for wheelchair users.

Not to be a rabid disabled person or anything, but it may be worth checking the preponderance of people with disabilities in the workforce to make sure you get your kharzi ratio correct.
Oh, and don't assume that wheelchair users are the only people with mobility difficulties and/or health issues that will necessitate them using a "disability-accessible loo". Some ambulants use them to change colostomy bags or incontinence protection, others use them because they make getting on and off the loo easier (hand-rails, transfer bars etc).

The other approach is to do away with the suites altogether and have private WC cubicles off a corridor, enclosed by standard plasterboard walls. These are more spacious as you do not need any lobbies anymore, etc. They are also private, it's just you in there. The washbasin & mirror are all there inside the same space. Theoretically these could be unisex for more flexibility (the staff male / female ratio is 50/50 in this case), but of course, they can equally be allocated just for the guys or women (there is always a separate wheelchair user WC, which is unisex).

I see what you're doing. It's 'cos we're disabled, innit? Not quite human enough not to have to share bogs like "proper" humans?

I like this option better, because I know that I would prefer to be in a more private space (plus selfishly it gives me way more scope for designing something nice for the space).

The boss reckons that people in offices like using WC suites, as they can have a little chat with each other, while washing their hands / checking their make-up / hair, or to pass the time of day (his words).

Really? What would you prefer? Private WC or WC suite shared with others?

Big problem with either option is having to hear other people shit and/or piss, and/or see their jobbies if the lazy fuckers haven't flushed (which seems to be some kind of badge of honour in most work-places and trains).

 

[Gerry1time]

Get the impression this thread is just like the real world, men want private toilets, women want communal.

Personally, being a bloke, my ideal would be -

Lobby style toilets
Private cubicle rooms in them with floor to ceiling doors
Massive fuck off extractor fan in each one, changing the air in the cubicle completely every 10 seconds or so
No urinals, just cubicles

In that sense, unisex would be best to my mind, rather than creating spaces separated by gender.

 

[ViolentPanda]

Anyone who doesn't enjoy getting paid to take a shit is wrong in the head IMO.

I used to hold mine in until I got to work, when I was a Civil Servant, but only because I knew that my boss had awful attacks of gagging whenever he smelt any shit that wasn't his own.